In a thread about some protestor alleging that Mitt Romney was a racist, I made the following post:

Quote

Have you read the Book of Mormon? I think there's plenty of basis for calling the man a racist.

The post was subsequently deleted and I was infracted two points for "discrimination/hatefulness." Now, apparently pointing out literary and theological facts is now hateful.

Let's take a look at Mormon scripture, shall we?

Quote from: 2 Nephi 5:21-23

"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."

"And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities."

"And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done."

"And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey."

The Lord God, according to the Book of Mormon (which is, according to the Mormon faith, more correct than any book on earth), created a "black" race that were "loathsome" and an "idle, mischievous and subtle" people.

Quote from: 2 Nephi 30:6

"...their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure white and a delightsome people."

Later in the Book of Mormon (which I again must emphasize is believed by Mormons to be the most truthful book ever written and the word of God), it is stated that these people can be saved, but when they are they will be come white and "delightsome" once again. In 1981, "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure", when Mitt Romney was in his mid-30s.

Whiteness being a sign of pureness and goodness and blackness being a sign of sinfulness is in fact a common motif in the Book of Mormon (see 1 Nephi 11:8, 1 Nephi 11:13, 1 Nephi 12:23, Alma 3:6, Jacob 3:8).

Let's see what some Mormon Church leaders had to say about black people:

Quote from: Brigham Young, 1863

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

Quote from: Brigham Young, 1857

You can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become grayhaired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil.

Quote from: Joseph Smith

There is a reason why one man is born black and with other disadvantages, while another is born white with great advantages. The reason is that we once had an estate before we came here, and were obedient, more or less, to the laws that were given us there. Those who were faithful in all things there received greater blessings here, and those who were not faithful received less.

So the facts back up my first sentence. Even if you disagree with my conclusions (and there are certainly some passages in the Book of Mormon that contradict the more sickeningly racist ones), based on the text there is plenty of evidence to come to them. They are not hateful, nor are they discriminatory, but instead opinions based on the actual, factual, physical text of a literary and theological work. Nothing negative is said about people of the Mormon faith; it is an opinion about a book.

Now, perhaps the infraction was instead for alleging that there is evidence enough to believe that Mitt Romney might be a racist? I don't think one can discriminate against a single person, though perhaps the moderators disagree. Surely it's been allowed for years on this forum to voice negative opinions about famous individuals, even individuals on the forum, through the FF/HP polls. Mitt Romney has made it clear that he believes deeply in his faith, he has held leadership positions in the Mormon church, he has gone overseas to convert people to the religion, he attended a Mormon university with strict rules and guidelines based on the Mormon faith and culture. He regards the Book of Mormon as scripture and true, and has as such taught it to his children.

The Mormon church retained its racist policies until well into Mitt Romney's adulthood. The racist portions of the Book of Mormon largely remain in tact to this day. To my knowledge, Romney never spoke out about these policies when they were still in on the books. It is only since he has entered public life that he has denounced them.

In conclusion, I ask that my infraction points be removed, that my post be returned to the thread, and the moderators apologize for being overzealous and stifling a free exchange of ideas. My post said nothing hateful or discriminatory about followers of the Mormon faith; it was simply, based on the facts of Mormon scripture and the facts of Mormon church policies, critical of a single politician, which on a forum devoted to political debate and discussion, should not be a punishable offense.

I have no real opinion one way or another on the general notion of cracking down on unfair bullying of religious folks, or mormons specifically, on this forum but how oversensitive the moderation gets taken can be absurd. That post clearly shouldn't have been infracted. (And I would go so far as to suggest that if that post was made by any other poster it probably wouldn't have been infracted, given how obvious Lief has been singled out specifically by certain mods over this weirdly random anti anti-mormon crusade.)

Calling Mitt Romney a racist because of an outdated and isolated view of Mormon Scripture with no real evidence to back up the claim is...yeah, it's pretty clearly a personal attack, the same way as the occasional "Barack Obama hates white people" stuff is.

Calling Mitt Romney a racist because of an outdated and isolated view of Mormon Scripture with no real evidence to back up the claim is...yeah, it's pretty clearly a personal attack, the same way as the occasional "Barack Obama hates white people" stuff is.

Yes, a belief that is argued by church founders and church leadership is definitely "isolated." Of course you've long been one of the members of what Marokai very acutely summed up as a "weirdly random anti anti-mormon crusade" so your stance on this is unsurprising.

I'm not one to whine about moderation in general, but as someone who got infracted for "hatefulness" for what, in my opinion, was a fairly lighthearted reference to the Mormon practice of "baptising" the dead, I have to side with you on this one.

For the record, I don't believe Romney's a racist, of course - and I'd agree with The Mikado that it's a personal attack, but do we infract those? - but is it really hateful to point out some disturbing stuff that Book of Mormon says?

Aside from a few (swiftly deleted) posts, I haven't had much to say on Mormonism, and don't really have a strong opinion - I don't know enough about it as a faith, but I don't like the idea that questioning anything about a religion is discriminatory * or hateful.

Of course I recognise that my $0.02 is completely irrelevant and I'm not expecting this to be read by anyone, but I'm bored and felt like chiming in.

* Eh, I guess it's technically discriminatory, but only in the sense that criticising anything about any religion is discriminatory by definition. Are we going to get infracted for criticising Scientology next? And, no, I'm not saying that Mormonism is equivalent to Scientology, before this post gets deleted for hatefulness too.

Logged

Member of the House of Representatives (F-NY)37th Attorney General of Atlasia

Calling Mitt Romney a racist because of an outdated and isolated view of Mormon Scripture with no real evidence to back up the claim is...yeah, it's pretty clearly a personal attack, the same way as the occasional "Barack Obama hates white people" stuff is.

Yeah, after four years of being a non-disruptive poster on the forum, never considered a troublemaker, even someone who was liked well enough to be elected Atlasian President, Napoleon should be allowed to stay.

Calling Mitt Romney a racist because of an outdated and isolated view of Mormon Scripture with no real evidence to back up the claim is...yeah, it's pretty clearly a personal attack, the same way as the occasional "Barack Obama hates white people" stuff is.

Why can't we personally attack Mitt Romney?

What, Mikado? So if I call Mitt Romney a pompous douchebag there will be death points for it? How about if I call Obama "uppity"?

Calling Mitt Romney a racist because of an outdated and isolated view of Mormon Scripture with no real evidence to back up the claim is...yeah, it's pretty clearly a personal attack, the same way as the occasional "Barack Obama hates white people" stuff is.

Yes, a belief that is argued by church founders and church leadership is definitely "isolated." Of course you've long been one of the members of what Marokai very acutely summed up as a "weirdly random anti anti-mormon crusade" so your stance on this is unsurprising.

Only if you import Protestant ideas of sola scriptura into a context where they're utterly out of place and ignore that the Mormon faith is a faith of continuing revelation and that more recent prophetic revelations override the earlier ones. Judging Mormonism by the writings of Joseph Smith is like trying to discuss Christianity in terms of moksha and samsara...you're importing something fundamentally alien to Mormon doctrine (the Protestant idea that the original doctrine trumps later revelation) into a context where it doesn't fit.

Of course, you have no understanding of theology, so you wouldn't understand that and would work under the assumption that all religions' relationship to their scripture are carbon copies of Martin Luther's views of the Bible.

If attacking public figures viciously and without quarter is infractionable, I would like to know about that, because I do that myself from time to time. Of course, it is unfair to call the Mormon religion (particularly at this juncture) racist, and ludicrous to call Mittens a racist because he is a Mormon, but that is life in the public square. Those that go there in my view simply impeach themselves, res ipsa loquitur.

I would have to see and study the exact context for the instant case at hand, but absent some curve ball such posts should not be infractionable in my opinion. In my mind, there is a bright line between how one interacts and treats posters here, and how one characterizes public figures from afar.

If people were posting stuff about Scientology comparable to the standard anti-Mormon posts we get, it wouldn't be controversial or infracted at all.

Putting aside the issue at hand, I think it fair to draw a line between Scientology and more "standard" religions. In my view, Scientology is a scam, which uses tactics which are malum in se. They are great for lawyers however, since they create a lot of litigation, particularly when they get some company owner to see the light, and then go about systematically trying to bring all the employees into the fold - or do what it takes to cause them to take a hike. Our office has had a couple of cases like that. We made the Scientologists pay.